Through GBH
Dispute Resolution Consultancy, Brian provides arbitration, mediation and ADR services,
consultancy, and
specialist training to businesses, public bodies, and professionals. Acting as
Arbitrator or Mediator, and advising sitting arbitrators, mediators and conciliators on arbitration and ADR law and practice
are specialisms. In addition to this specialist knowledge and expertise
of Arbitration Law and Procedure (including drafting and construction of
reasoned awards) and ADR Law and Procedure, Brian brings in-depth knowledge of
Contract Law, Commercial and Company Law, both domestic and international, and
an excellent grasp of business, technical, engineering and IT
matters.

GBH
Dispute Resolution Consultancy is based in Dublin, Ireland, and has
international reach.

Recent work
includes:

Mediator in
an international commercial property contract dispute, amount of claim exceeding
€13m.

Assistant to
Mediator in dispute involving a major roads construction project, amount
of claim exceeding €14m.

Assistant to
Arbitrator in a dispute involving a major roads construction project,
amount of claim exceeding €50m.

Advisor to
Arbitrator in a major national facility construction dispute, amount of
claim in excess of €1.2m.

Advisor to
Arbitrator in a building dispute, amount of claim exceeding €1m.

Advisor to
Independent Expert in a rent review valuation of a foreshore lease.

Provided
Legal Opinion to party on arbitration of a major national facility
construction dispute.

Legal
advisor to party in arbitration of a building dispte, claim exceeding
€800,000.

Independent
Legal Advisor to a Local Authority in a Risk Assessment of an
arbitration following a conciliation concerning a major drainage dispute.

Advisor to
Arbitrator in a public building dispute, circa €1m in dispute.

Advisor to
conciliator in a construction dispute involving a major national
structure, claim in excess of €3m.

Advisor to
Arbitrator in a major drainage contract dispute, claim exceeding
€4m.

Expert
Witness on Irish Company Law in UK litigation, claim in excess of STG£1m.

Advisor to
arbitrator in a building defects dispute, claim exceeding €1m.

Brian has
also regularly serves as arbitrator or mediator in a large number of disputes
involving Small and Medium Sized Enterprises, Partnership Disputes, and
in Consumer disputes.

A qualified
arbitrator and mediator, he has served as Arbitrator, as arbitrator’s Legal
Advisor, as party Legal Consultant and as Mediator in a number of domestic
and international arbitrations and conciliations with total amounts in
dispute in excess of €50,000,000; and he has served as expert witness in
multi-million pound UK litigation.

In addition, Brian
has provided training and consultancy
to a variety of business and public bodies - past projects include the
provision of training for Inquiry Members from the Office of the Irish
Financial Regulator, and sitting as Legal Expert and Editor for the European
Standards Committee’s project on the Standardisation of On-Line Dispute
Resolution tools (CEN/ISSS
- WS/Stand-ODR). In 2008 he advised the Irish Attorney General on aspects
of the Irish Arbitration Bill, 2008 which now, as the Arbitration
Act 2010, governs domestic and international arbitration in the
Republic of Ireland. He has also been consulted by the Law Reform Commission
of Ireland, the Irish National Consumer Agency, and the EU Commission, DG
SANCO, with regard to
the development and use of ADR in Ireland and Europe.

An
advocate for appropriate alternative dispute resolution, Brian has lectured
and advised extensively on Arbitration and ADR to professional bodies and
associations, including the Chartered Institue of Arbitrators, The Royal
Institue of Architects in Ireland, Engineers Ireland, the Society of Chartered
Surveyors, the Chief State Solicitor's Office, and the European Institute of
Public Affairs, Luxembourg, and he is a regular speaker at the Academy of
European Law (ERA) in Triers, Germany, on matters relating to Mediation and
ADR, with special interest in cross border consumer disputes.

Brian is
Senior
Lecturer in the School of Law, University
College Dublin, Ireland, where he has been a member of staff since 1991,
and Vice Dean of the Law School from 1996 to 2007. A specialist in the fields
of Commercial Law and Alternative Dispute Resolution, he has researched,
written and lectured extensively on Arbitration and ADR, Company Law, Commercial Law, Contract Law and
Agency, and Information Technology. He is Editor of the Commercial Law
Practitioner Law Journal (ISSN 0791-895X) and is former Editor of Irish
Business Law Journal (ISSN 1393-6220). He is a member of the Editorial Board
of the Irish Jurist law
journal (ISSN 0021-1273).

Contribution
to Arbitration and ADR

In 2001
Brian became Project leader of the pilot phase of
the ECODIR (Electronic Consumer Dispute Resolution) project ((www.ecodir.org) (DG Sanco n°
B5-1000/00/000112) which, begun in the University of Namur, Belgium and the
University of Montreal, Canada, pioneered the development of online dispute
resolution in Europe. He continues to steward the ECODIR service and is a
director of the Irish Registered Company ECODIR Ltd.

He was also co-founder
and company secretary of Arbitration of International Disputes Ltd, an Irish
company owned and formed by the Bar Council, Law Society, Institute of
Chartered Accountants in Ireland, Business and Employers Confederation, and
Institute of Arbitrators (Irish Branch) to explore the use of online
arbitration in Ireland).

He was also Chair of the “CCForm” EU IST
Thematic Network (IST-2001-34908) Topic Panel 5 – «CCForm and ADR», and he
has acted as consultant to Irish Government Department of Enterprise Trade
and Employment, e-business unit; and the Law Reform Commission of Ireland.

From 1998-2004 Brian
was Committee Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (Irish Branch).

He is an invited
founder Member of the United Nations Expert Group on Online Dispute
Resolution established in 2002.

He is an invited
founder member and current Secretary General of the Irish Delegation of the
European Court of Arbitration.

He is also Member of
the London Court of International Arbitration, the Society for Computers and
Law, the Society of Legal Scholars, and the Association Suisse de
l'Arbitrage.

Academic
Activity

A
Senior member of Faculty at the UCD School of Law at University College
Dublin, Ireland, Brian
is Acting Director of the UCD Commercial Law
Centre, and has served continuously
as Assistant Dean, Associate Dean, and Vice Dean of the Faculty/School of Law
from 1996 to 2007, and more recently also as Programme Director for the
Bachelor of Civil Law Degree Programme, as well as, for many years, Chair of
the Faculty Computer Policy Committee and a number of other Faculty/School
committees. He is Founder and Programme Director of the Diploma in
Arbitration, which has been running since 1997 and which is accredited by the
Chartered Institute of Arbitrators.He is a director of the Diploma in
International Financial Services Law in the school which is run under the Law
Society FINUAS network and which is supported by the Irish Government under
the National Development Plan. He was, in addition, for many years the Senior
Treasurer of the UCD Law Students Debating Society, and is a member of the UCD
Student's Union Independent Appeals Board. He has also served as assessor for
the IRCHSS on the Government of Ireland Scholarships panel, and as a member of
the UCD QA/QI panel. He was also external examiner for a number of
subjects at the School of Law at the University of Limerick, and is currently
external examiner for legal subjects at the Cork Institute of Technology.

Brian has been visiting lecturer variously at the
University of Hannover, Germany (1993-1998), Duquesne University, Pittsburgh,
USA (1998), De Paul University, Chicago, USA (1999 & 2006), and Stetson
University, Florida, USA (2000), and he has also lectured at Boston
University, Boston, USA (1995 & 1996). He also teaches annually on the
Duquesne University Summer Programme Ireland, and the Fordham University School
of Law Summer Programme. In 2007 he was Visiting
Fellow at the Faculty of Law at the University of Geneva, Switzerland.

Current doctoral
supervision by Brian at the School of Law, UCD includes a review of Interim Measures in International Arbitraton;
the Adequacy of Independent Legal Advice associated with giving Personal
Guarantees; a Review of the EU Insolvency Regulation; and the Perfection of Security Interests in Real
and Personal Property, funded by the IRCHSS under the Government of Ireland
Scholars Programme. Previous supervision has covered research on Commercial
Agents; Online Dispute Resolution; and a variety of commercial law
topics.

Company Law I and II
(Bachelor of Civil Law and Bachelor of Business and Law programmes)
Commercial Arbitration (LLM Commercial Law programme)
Law of Credit and Security (LLM Commercial Law programme)
Arbitration Law and Procedure, and Award Writing (Diploma in Arbitration
Programme)